A/N: Uuuugh. I hated writing this. I didn't want to write this. But you guys deserve it, so, here you go.

Thank you for loving me.

Oyaji would slap him uptop and laugh that he didn't need to thank them.

(But he really is grateful, and Ace thinks that if he's going to die, he at least wants them to know that he feels that way.)

He expects to be in pain.

(He's not, though.)

He expects to regret something.

(But he has none.)

He expected death to be... he doesn't quite know. More dramatic, maybe?

(It's dramatic enough, with everyone gaping like that, but he's just kind of at peace.)

He's spent so much of his life thinking he should be dead.

(Funny how, now that he's dying, he thinks he still wants to live.)

He's lived his whole life lying.

Thank you for loving me.

(He can't quite remember the last time he lied.)

(Okay, fine, yeah, he can. Troublesome Tuesday, where he dyed every last plank of wood a glow in the dark bright purple, and then switched their flag with a sparkly pink banner. Then he said that Thatch had done it.)

(But that's totally not the point.)

(The point is, he's dying.)

(And he's okay with that.)

Whitebeard's lost sons before.

He's lived so long, half of him just yearns to look at Ace's death and to have been numbed to this.

(He could never be numb to this, though.)

"He's Gol D. Roger's son."

("You're my son.")

He wants to be proud of the way that Ace dies, proud of how he saves his brother, saves someone important to him.

(Maybe it's selfish, but all he wants is for Ace to be alive.)

He cracks the air itself, fury burning and heart hardening.

(He just wants to make a crack in time, to see Ace smile at him one more time.)

This is war.

(He hates war, because war means death, and death is a loss, even if he "wins".)

Ace, that idiot son of his, dies with a smile on his lips.

(He's happy, that should be enough, but Whitebeard's greedy and he wants more time with his son.)

"Thank you for loving me."

(Thank you for letting me love you.)

Ace is dying.

And Marco is not okay with that.

He wants to scream, to shout, to say something.

(It's not that he didn't know Ace would die early. They were pirates. They never really lived to die of old age. Something like that... it wasn't for people like them, with the sea in their eyes and the stars in their blood. He just...)

He never really anticipated death.

(Perhaps foolishly, he wanted to just cling to those moments of peace and laughter and pretend that those moments would be eternal.)

He doesn't remember much of the battle after Ace dies, after Oyaji dies.

He remembers his chest beating, heart thumping and rattling in his ribcage, remembers that frozen moment where he stares, thinks, nononono, this isn't happening... Vaguely remembers snarling something, remembers transforming, rushing, the sound of wind in his ears and roars in the wind.

Remembers blood and sweat and tears and a hollow little hole in his chest as he stands over the two graves, thinking that it's not enough, that nothing will ever quite be enough, never again.

You're the first division commander, Marco. He thinks, hollow and blank and defeated despite the voice in his chest screaming no.

You've got to do something. Do what? What's the point in doing when his family's already broken?

Two people.

Oyaji and Ace.

Hundreds of people.

Bodies strewn across the battle field like grass on a field.

Why should only those two matter?

Maybe it's selfish.

Because those were two that I loved.

His chest tightens.

(Maybe he's crying.)

They're dead.

There's a burning, fiery need in Aiji when he goes to the war, to stop this nonsense, this insanity, and go back to the time of peace.

(Is it selfish, to want to go back to laughing and pretend that nothing is wrong with the world?)

He laughs and fights and there's adrenaline pumping through him as he swings at a marine and knocks the legs out from under another.

(The adrenaline fades when Ace is gone, like dandelion fluff in the wind, which feels wrong.)

The world stops when Ace dies.

(His world stops when Ace dies.)

There's a burning, fiery need in Aiji to stop this war.

(But he can't turn back time.)

He wishes this were all a dream.

(But there's the smell of blood in the air and copper on his tongue.)

Ace is dead. Oyaji is dead.

(But he's still alive.)

His commander is gone.

(The second division has led itself for so long, can't they do it again?)

(No way.)

(Not after Ace had led them.)

(He was their commander.)

(Nothing would change that.)

So he fights.

(He hates fighting.)

They're calling it the Battle of the Best.

Yuu wouldn't know, she wasn't allowed to go.

So, instead of running into the battle, sword drawn and voice shrill, she's sitting at a bar, desperately hoping as she downs another shot.

(She wishes she were there.)

She wonders if there would have been a difference if she were there.

(No way, she thinks, it would have gone down the same way.)

And there's Ace, a gaping hole in his chest, and people are cheering, and it's all Yuu can do not to pull out her sword (the sword that Ace gave her) and swing it at them and scream.

Maybe she's crying.

(What do I do now?)

THE END

A/N: Was this okay? Did I do it justice?